Shaking his head, he tugged his jeans the rest of the way on and lifted his hips to pull them up. “So, basically all I need to do is make a complete ass of myself, and we’re normal? Wait. Let me write that one down.”
As he pushed off the floor and stood, she took a step closer. Then another, until she could lay her hand against his hard, bare chest. Her touch felt burning hot.
“Not a complete ass. Just…not Super Friend or Pretend Boyfriend or whatever the hell it is you’ve been playing these last weeks.”
If her hand hadn’t been on his chest, he would have walked out of the room. “I’m doing the best I can here, Nat. What do you want from me?”
Her eyes narrowed. “I want you to treat me like you used to. I want you to stop treating me like glass, and I need you to tell me when I’m being ridiculous.”
“Fine. You’re being ridiculous. Are you happy now?”
Her hand lifted and traced his jaw. “I want you to follow me.”
“Where?”
In response, she only spun around and left the room. “And don’t put on a shirt,” she called out over her shoulder.
He gulped, rock hard now as he strode after her. She left the house, then the patio, and headed for the bridge. When she reached it, she fingered the trails of lights as she passed through their soft glow, her sandals echoing on the wooden planks.
When she opened the back door of her house, she turned in the doorway and leaned against it. He could see the unmistakable desire in her eyes. His footsteps ate up the ground between them. When he met her in the doorway, he stared into her brilliant eyes, the blue so dark it was almost indigo now.
“You’re going to have to say it.” Please, God, let her say it.
“I want you,” she said and laid her hand on his chest again, right in the center over his thudding heart.
He dipped his head until their mouths were inches apart. Her warm breath rushed over his face when he yanked her body to his rock-hard one.
“And I want you. Only you. Always you.”
Chapter 23
After weeks of pseudo-dating, Natalie had grown needy and restless. She wanted to be normal with him again and could no longer deny that fact to herself. And so she’d followed him into his bedroom to confront him, worried that he may have simply given up on her, on them, after their awkward conversation had lapsed into silence.
Hearing how nervous and awkward he’d felt—that she’d made him sweat through his shirt… Well, her huge and scary love for him had burst its confines.
She wanted to be herself with him again and laugh, and she wanted to see him let down his guard and relax—and sweat in her presence from a purely different reason.
The only way to do that was for them to be intimate with each other.
If he’d shown her anything over these past weeks, it was that he loved her. He’d do anything for her. Now she needed to see how much she could do for him, with him, once again.
Though he was poised just inches away from her mouth, he still didn’t kiss her. She could almost hear him asking her if she was sure. Okay, she wasn’t, but the only way she’d know is if she plunged ahead. She rose on her tiptoes and pressed her lips to his, and the groan he released told her everything she needed to know about his state of arousal.
His tongue was like rock striking flint, stirring the smoldering sparks of desire inside her. His lips were the kindling fueling the blaze. Heat spread across her body, and all the years of missing him fanned the flames into an inferno.
She tugged off her sundress in a fit of near madness, desperate for him. “I need you. Right now.”
He released her and stepped back a few paces, all the better to see her, she knew. The sight of his muscular, broad chest was enough to make her damp in places that had gone dry since leaving him. Lust swept through her, destroying her fears. She unhooked her bra and let it drop to the floor.
“Touch me,” she said, padding forward, lifting his hands to her breasts.
His fingers caressed the undersides first, where he knew she was sensitive. Her head fell back as his touch curved around to the top. God, she had missed his hands on her breasts. It had been torture to keep their contact to kissing and light touching these last few weeks. Suddenly, she realized they were still in the doorway. Touchdown lay on the ground only a few feet away in the kitchen.
“Stop fooling around,” she said in a stern voice, pulling him inside and slamming the back door.
“You always were impatient,” he answered in a husky voice.
She leaned back against the door, wanting him to take her against it, hard and fast, before she could think of anything else. “Blake.”
His thumbs rubbed her nipples with agonizing precision, and she cried out. If he would only kiss her there, she would come. She knew it. But he didn’t. Blake planned to savor their joining. She could feel it in his every movement, his every gesture. She clenched her eyes shut.